Canada's Sun Life raising stake in Indian insurance JV for $250 mln

MUMBAI Dec 2 (Reuters) - Canada's Sun Life Financial Inc
will increase its stake in its Indian life insurance
joint venture, Birla Sun Life Insurance, to 49 percent by
spending 16.64 billion rupees ($250 million), the companies said
on Wednesday.

Sun Life Financial, which currently owns 26 percent of Birla
Sun Life, is buying an additional 23 percent in the JV from
partner India's Aditya Birla Nuvo Ltd. Aditya Birla
Nuvo will have 51 percent of the venture after the deal, which
the companies said is expected to close by March 2016.

The deal is the latest in the Indian insurance sector this
year after the government raised the foreign investment cap in
the $50 billion sector to 49 percent from 26 percent earlier.

Japan's Nippon Life and France's AXA
recently announced deals to raise their stakes to 49 percent in
their respective Indian insurance joint ventures.
($1 = 66.5859 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)